Vishanthie Sewpaul -Chair of Task force on review of ethical principles

Profile Details

Name: Professor Vishanthie Sewpaul (PhD)

Email: Sewpaul@ukzn.ac.za

Position within Board of Directors and Terms of Serving: Vice-President, September 2010- September 2015

Affiliation and Position (other than IASSW): President, Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa

Vice-President and past-President of the Association of South African Social Work Education Institutions (ASASWEI)

Membership of organisations (other than IASSW): South African Council for Social Service Professions; National Association of Social Workers, South Africa (NASW, SA)

Educational Qualification/s: (Degrees): B. Soc.Sc (SW); Master of Medical Science (SW); PhD

Languages written and spoken: English

Interest Areas : Social Work education, research and practice

Current Activities: Undergraduate and postgraduate teaching; postgraduate thesis supervision; field supervision; community engagement; academic administration.

Vishanthie Sewpaul comes from humble beginnings, having lost her father when she was five months of age, raised with six siblings by her mother, who was a domestic servant. She managed to get to university against the odds and is now a Senior Professor in the School of Applied Human Sciences at the University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa. Her personal biography, and growing up under apartheid has a profound influence on her choice of emancipatory pedagogical, research and community engagement strategies. She is a vice-president on the board of IASSW, and president of ASSWA, and the immediate past president (current vice-president) of ASASWEI. She was elected as the president of the first ever non-racial professional association, NASW,SA in 2007 and was re-elected as its president in 2009.

Vishanthie served in several positions on the cutting edge of SW education and practice in post-apartheid SA, and she chaired the Global Standards for SW Education Committee on behalf of IASSW. She is currently chairing the International SW Definition taskforce on behalf of IASSW. She has delivered keynote, invited plenary and guest lectures in several countries and has published widely. She was twice voted one of top thirty researchers at UKZN, and is currently one of three finalists for the Distinguished Women in Science Awards in South Africa.

Throughout her teaching career Vishanthie has maintained active practice links in several areas. The HIV/AIDS project that she ran was regarded as one of the best practice models that was filmed and screened on national TV (e-TV). Working in close collaboration with students, a community-based, participatory project with children and youth living on the streets of Durban culminated in the production of a movie based on the narratives of the youth (with the youth as actors) used for schools based education in an attempt to prevent children from migrating to the streets. She has made differences within the spheres of her influence, including emancipatory education, public debate and open letters and petitioning in the interests of justice and human rights, and is particularly interested in the influences of neoliberalism and new managerialism.